Riot Games, the organization behind League of Legends Esports (LoL Esports) and other well-known PC games has picked Nevion solutions and services to support its global IP remote production project known as Project Stryker. Nevion, on the other hand, is a Sony Group Company and provider of virtualized media production solutions. The company headquarters is in Norway.
As Esports explodes in popularity across the globe, Riot Games is building a global production system to produce live events anywhere, anytime from centralized production data centers.
Presently, it has a new remote broadcast and content production center (RBC) in Dublin, Ireland. It is the first of multiple to be built and interconnected to provide a global follow-the-sun production model. Each is able to produce several events simultaneously based on time zone requirements. Nevion is providing the solution to orchestrate media flows between the remote venues and the RBC across Riot’s wide area network (WAN). The WAN is known as Riot Direct.
The solution will be built around Nevion’s software-defined media node, Virtuoso and its orchestration and SDN control software, VideoIPath.
Specifications of Virtuoso
The Nevion Virtuoso
The Virtuoso will be deployed in the SMPTE ST 2110 enabled data centers. It will also be deployed in mobile “contribution kits” to be taken to event locations as needed. The media nodes will thus provide several media functions to transport flows across the network. These include SDI/SMPTE ST 2110 adaption, JPEG XS low latency video compression, MADI processing and transport and IPME (IP media edge) functionality for LAN to WAN hand-off, multicast to unicast conversion, and flow protection.
Riot says it first deployed Nevion Virtuoso with JPEG XS in remote production of League of Legends World Championship Final in 2019. It became one of the world’s first uses of the compression technology.
This year, Riot completed the successful integration of MADI over IP/SMPTE ST 2110 between Los Angeles and Reykjavik during the League of Legends World Championship in Iceland.
Advantages of VideolPath
Nevion Videolpath on PC
Moreover, VideoIPath will function as a single orchestration layer for the WAN media connectivity. This enables Riot to quickly connect contribution kits with centralized production infrastructure in the data centers.
To that end, VideoIPath will also provide dynamic connection and orchestrate all media flows, carefully managing and optimizing the use of bandwidth. It will also configure the Virtuoso media node adaptation, JPEG XS compression and flow protection to fit different production requirements with integrated service-level monitoring.
Also Read: Esports Technology: It Should Be Your Next Project (Episode 59 of AV+)
Benefits of the Solution
Scott Adametz, senior manager of infrastructure engineering at Riot Games expands on the company’s plans. According to Adametz, Riot Games plans to develop new production and operations workflows. This will support its growth from a single-game esports company to a multigame future. “…Having worked with Nevion for a couple of years already, we knew that Nevion’s products, expertise and experience would enable us to build an IP solution that would allow for more global efficiency for our esports productions,” he says.
Thomas Heinzer, CEO at Nevion adds, “Riot Games are real pioneers in live production. [And] we’re always proud to be part of their innovative projects, from their first use of JPEG XS two years ago to this latest venture to create a truly global production capability.”
